Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game

It is the late 1930s and the world is in turmoil. Humanity is on the brink of war as imperialist nations in the Far East and Europe work aggressively to expand their domination. The Nazis have taken control of Germany and now spread darkness across the globe in their hunt for powerful occult artifacts that can give them the upper hand in the days to come. But the spirit of adventure and freedom won’t be stamped out so easily.

Heroic adventurers from around the world answer the call, racing against time to hunt down ancient artifacts, explore deadly temples, and fight back the powers of darkness from engulfing the world. It is a race of good versus evil and only a cunning and agile explorer can claim the ultimate prize of… Fortune and Glory!

Fortune and Glory, The Cliffhanger Game is a fast-paced game of high adventure, vile Villains, edge-of-your-seat danger, and Cliffhanger pulp Movie Action. Players travel the globe in search of ancient artifacts, fending off danger and Villains at every turn in a quest for ultimate reward. So strap on your adventure boots and goggles, fire up the engines on the seaplane, and grab some extra ammo for your revolver…the Nazis already have a head start and in this race for Fortune and Glory, there’s no prize for second place!

Each player takes on the role of a pulp adventure Hero, hunting down ancient artifacts around the world and collecting Gear and Allies to help overcome the various Enemies, Dangers, and Villains that stand in their way. During each Game Round the Heroes roll off to determine the First Player then all get to Move (starting with the First Player), and then all get to Adventure (starting with the First Player). There are two resources in the game, Fortune and Glory. Heroes collect Glory by defeating Enemies and overcoming Dangers and then spend that Glory to Heal wounds and buy Gear and Allies. They collect Fortune by recovering Artifacts and selling them in cities.

In the Competitive Game, players race against one another to be the first to collect 15 Fortune. In the Cooperative Game, all of the Heroes work together toward a larger collective Fortune total as they race against a Vile Organization played by the game itself.

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Fortune and Glory - Part 1

Lead Designer, Jason C. Hill, shows off Flying Frog's game, 'Fortune and Glory, The Cliffhanger Game' at the FFP Booth at the 2011 GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas.5:56

Fortune and Glory Part 2

Lead Designer, Jason C. Hill, gives an overview of the gameplay.10:55

User Reviews (10)

Being a fan of the Indiana Jones movies since they first arrived on screen, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get up to my neck in a game with this much Indy-like theme! And boy! It’s chock-full of theme. A few hundred cards and bits and a ridiculously detailed game board, this game is sure to strike fancy with anyone that has an ameritrash itch.

Speaking of which, if the term ameritrash is the best way to describe a game with a heavy theme and lots of minis and bits and cards, this game is an ameri-landfill. So…much…stuff. But not to its detriment. The fact that it has so much junk in it is, for me, what gives the game its appeal. The game comes with some quick start rules and another rulebook that explains all aspects of the game in greater detail. With a game this crazy huge, I was able to read through the quick start and get a game going shortly after opening the box for the first time. It probably helped that we had a bunch of eager adventurers waiting their turn to take down the Nazis.

The Good Stuff
The Theme, the bits, the gameplay, the replay value, the rules…all of it. Love all of it. While there isn’t a lot of strategic depth to this game, it’s a clear winner for me. Doesn’t hit the table as often as I want [due to the ominous nature, probably], but it’s a downright blast. Plays well as a two player game, but I think this game goes better with 4 or 5. Any more and it would slow down the time between turns and create a lot of other issues, likely with the length of game.

One of the mechanics in the game, the cliff hanger, is brilliant. As one attempts to steal or capture an artifact, they have to pass a series of tests. If one fails a test, they flip their current card [the danger card] over to see what the cliffhanger is. Then their turn is over. They can’t try to accomplish the cliffhanger test until their next turn.

The Bad Stuff
Honestly, the amount of junk in this game will be a big turn off to most people. And…if you don’t like roll & move games, this probably isn’t for you. But the thing about it is that it doesn’t feel like a roll & move game because there’s so much lurking around the corner. The main rule book can get a little wonky with explanations…and frankly adds so many variants to the game that it kinda seems blurry which is a real rule and which is a variant.

I’m not going to call the “luck” in the game a bad thing [or a good thing]. Why is it even an issue at all? I think having luck in the game is what gives it that Indiana Jones charm…sometimes, luck goes your way…sometimes, you wind up on a plane owned by Lao Che. Arguable, almost every board game has luck involved at some level. The level of luck in this game is enough to make the game charming and intriguing.

It is the late 1930s and the world is in turmoil. Humanity is on the brink of war as imperialist nations in the Far East and Europe work aggressively to expand their domination. The Nazi party have taken control of Germany and now darkness spreads across the globe in their hunt for powerful occult artifacts that can give them the upper hand in the days to come. But the spirit of adventure and freedom won’t be stamped out so easily.

Heroic adventurers from around the world answer the call, racing against time to hunt down ancient artifacts, explore deadly temples, and fight back the powers of darkness from engulfing the world. It is a race of good versus evil and only a cunning and agile explorer can claim the ultimate prize of… Fortune and Glory!

Fortune and Glory, The Cliffhanger Game is a fast-paced game of high adventure, vile Villains, edge-of-your-seat danger, and thrilling Cliffhangers to keep you enthralled for more. Plays play as adventure seekers and archeologists on the hunt for ancient relics and treasures in exotic and fantastic locations hidden behind paralysis dangerous. Meanwhile, you must beware not only the forces of nature, but the nationalistic plague that is the Nazi party infiltrating the world in search of occultist and ancient relics in order to harness their power for their sinister plan of global genecide.

Flying Frog Productions bring us another attention-grabbing genre movie based game. Let me get this out of the way now. Many criticisms of FFP always seem to boil down to the art design of their games. The PhotoShop -> Filter -> Artistic -> Drybrush effect is used throughout the majority of their games is including here as well. Let me state this loud and proud; think it perfectly fits that B-movie feel FFP’s games have. Furthermore if you don’t like it and disregard the game based solely on the art design you are missing out on a fantastic game and I couldn’t pity you more. I’m sorry to come across so brash but I feel so strongly for this game and this genre of the gaming world and it has become a point of pride to defend it, but enough of the aesthetic, on to the game.

The game begins with a set up of the beautiful board and the starting artifacts. An artifact will have a listed number of Fortune it is worth and a number of Dangers that must be overcome in order retrieve the artifact. You will place a token on a random location on the board for each artifact. Players then either chose to pick your daring hero or heroins or deal one out randomly. Each hero is unique with their own flavor text, stats, starting location, and special abilities. Next, if players are playing cooperatively or are playing with the Vile Organization players will close to combat either the mafia or the Nazi party. The Zeppelin is placed as well as starting secret bases and bunkers and a starting villain. Now you’re ready for the adventure.

Each turn will begin with all players simultaneously roiling for initiative, should anyone roll a 1 they draw from an event deck. The player with the highest initiative will go first and play will proceed clockwise. Beginning with the first player, a hero will roll a die and move that many of spaces along the board. Should a hero encounter a Nazi figure during their movement phase they must immediately resolve combat. After all players have resolved their movement players will in turn order resolve an Adventure Phase. Should your hero be in a land or sea space without an adventure icon on it they will roll a dice and on a roll of a 1,4,5, or 6 draw an event card and take it into their hands.

Should Your hero end their movement phase in a space with an adventure icon on it, your hero will attempt to retrieve the fabled relic. You will begin to draw cards from the Danger Deck. Danger cards are the bulk of the action, a danger card will give your adventure story and plot twists and test your hero to the brink of death. A Danger card will have a skill check that must be met a certain number of times in order to successfully pass the danger, once a player passes the danger they have the option to press on the adventure or camp down and heal their wounds and collect their glory. Whats glory you say? Well, Glory is more of less the currency of the game, you use it to buy gear and allies and in some cases to travel to another city, you collect glory by going on Dangers and completing them. But here is the catch, should you chose to Press On to another danger and you don’t succeed, you end your turn and flip your card over to it’s Cliffhanger side. Cliffhangers are significantly more difficult challenges and should you fail your Cliffhanger your character is KO’d. Play will precede as such until the heroes are able to collect enough Fortune.

after the every hero resolves their adventure phase and you are playing with a vile organization you will resolve the villains turn. The villains will spawn more henchmen or soldiers on the map as well as attempt to retrieve artifacts themselves. Should the vile organization retrieve a set number of artifacts or go up on their villain chart they will win the game.

Fortune and Glory is without a doubt, one of the best games in my collection. I positively love the experience I get with Fortune and Glory and I have never been even close to find another game that brings me such joy. I want to stress the word Experience, because that’s what this game is, its an experience in edge of your seat trills, hair raising adventure, and fast paced game play. Every die roll in a tense die roll, every card you draw could be your last, every fight you do could lead you a wounded mess or feeling like a total powerful hero from the pulp era. You see, Fortune and Glory may be one of the most luck or random based games I’ve ever played, and it’s design is all about the fluctuation of luck and the roller coaster it leads you on. This may be a turn off for some player, I know for a fact that there are people who attend my gaming group who would tear their hair out due to the amount of die rolls and random card draws in the game, but for me, THAT is what makes the game special. You see, I honestly feel many publishers and designers are afraid of making a game like this. A game that leads to an experience like that only Fortune and Glory can deliver because of the predominant fallacy that strategy equals good and luck equals bad. You see, I am utterly bored by games that have you quietly sit at a table and do math for 12 turns ahead to beat an opponent on points. I love games that bring our the kid in you, games that have you role-playing, making funny voices, has you talking to the others around the table, has you standing up for a tense die roll, and no other game has done that better for me than Fortune and Glory. If you’re a gamer who isn’t allergic to die rolls and randomness, due yourself a favor and check this game out. Adventure awaits.

I will start with the fact that this game is pure Ameritrash awesomeness. If you don’t like that style of game you might just want to move on.

The components are wonderful and plentiful. Flying Frog is top notch when it comes to its bits. Sturdy cardboard and well printed cards. Characters are actors photographed in costumes. Pure Cheese!

The game is a living pulp novel. The more you play and get into the character, the more you will love the theme. Theme is simple adventure, excitement, fighting ***** or Mobsters. Collect the treasure and hit the skies in your very own Zeppelin. What more could you want.

The game is very rules heavy. It can take a few play throughs to master. (just ask the cast of Table Top) Keep the rules book handy, there are also a few good onesheets on another boardgaming website for help.

This is a big game. You need a lot of table space and a lot of time to get through.

Overall
Heavy on theme
Dice Rolling
Cooperative and competitive options
Lots of bits cardboard and plastic
A fun romp around the world!

I was really looking forward to this game. I saw it for the first time in the FLGS that hosts my gaming Meetup. I had considered purchasing it both to have the game, and to support the store, but the $90 price tag stayed my hand. Lo and behold, the following week someone else had already purchased it and I jumped in to a game.

We played the Competitive version. (There are also co-operative and mixed versions you can play.) I was a pilot character with the ability to fly around, bonuses to flying challenges, and good Combat and Agility skills. He wasn’t the brightest, though, being low in Cunning and Lore.

The game, in a nutshell, is that everyone rolls one die for initiative, then one die for movement. If you roll a 1 on either of those rolls you get an Event card which can be helpful, or can just be “Enemies appear in some locations.” Starting with the player who rolled highest for initiative, everyone moves, and then everyone has an Encounter phase where you either try to capture one of the treasures lying around the board, or you go to a city to shop and rest, or you have a random encounter if you’re just stuck wandering around with nothing near you.

The Encounters are typically “Danger Cards” with a skill challenge of some sort on them. You roll a number of dice depending on your score in the needed skill, with the target numbers on the card, and need a number of successes also on the card. So you might roll 3 dice and need 1 six, or roll 5 dice but need 5 4+’s. If you get at least ONE of the required numbers, you can re-roll, adding new successes. If you completely wash out the roll, you lose everything and fail the challenge, flipping the card to a “Cliffhanger” to be dealt with next turn.

If you succeed, you can also choose to “Press On” or rest. If you rest, you collect Glory points you can use to purchase allies, equipment, etc.. If you press on, it accumulates, but if you ever wash out that turn you lose everything you would have gained.

The game seems like it would be fun – except that as in my other reviews, I suffered from my typical malady where dice simply hate me. After failing my challenges every single turn, and having treasures stolen out from under me repeatedly, I just couldn’t care enough to protest when someone said “Let’s just call it.”

If you like luck-based dice fests, you may enjoy this game. I just couldn’t, myself.

With the mysterious and yet adventurous soundtrack playing in the background, I feel like I’ve been thrown into the world of Indiana Jones! The ***** or american mobsters are trying to get the artifacts before me, but I will not let them!
By traveling the world, I will stop these vile organisations before they get world dominance.

However, it is not as funny as it sounds! If I play Fortune and Glory several times in a short period of time I sort of get sucked into it, and really enjoy it, however when only playing every once in a while I forget some of the rules and this definitely makes it less enjoyable. The rulebook is a bit messy and most of the playing time is spend browsing the rulebook, because one game effect is described in one page and the next thing I need to know is described several pages later.
I have only ever played it solo, so the game experience might differ if one plays the competitive version or the co-op version.
However, when it is time for the vile organisation to act, via my hands, I sort of feel like it isn’t quite working. I can’t really describe the sensation more than that it feels like it is underdeveloped. This might be because I frequently have to look at the rules to see if I’ve forgotten anything and this is disturbing my sense of “being in the game”, or because it lacks some elements that I am unable to describe. It also feels quite repetitive, going after one artifact after another, while the same things happen.
The basics are really good, I just wished that they dialed it up a little bit. One tiny detail that really disturbs me is the first player chip; it is a big white circle with the flying frog logo on it. I would of wished that the first player chip would have fitted with the game theme instead of being an ugly blob!

My last comment is the nazi imagery. There is a warning text on the box, however it didn’t quite prepare me for what I was to see when opening the box. There are many, big and small, swastikas, and I am not so keen on seeing them. In a world where nazism and extreme xenophobia is on the rise again, I do not enjoy playing with these symbols, as if they were only a remnant of the past.

Over all , I am not a fan. The theme is good and I do like the thought of the game, however there are too many disturbances for me to be able to fully enjoy it!

My first introduction to this game was in the middle of the night at GenCon, and it was Amazing.
The game is like a 1940s serial action/adventure, the same genre that the Indiana Jones movies built on. Every player gets to be a treasure hunter with different degrees of expertise in 4 specific skills. Most of the heroes are fairly well balanced. The ones that are over/under powered in one skill make up for it with a special (dis)ability. For example, Dr. Zhukov is a Russian scientist who has an insane amount of cunning, but that is more than made up for by the fact that it is harder for him to succeed at any combat roll.
The game mechanics are easy to learn even if you’ve never encountered them before. The skill level of each character is how many d6 they roll for each specific skill test. The danger they are facing specifies what would constitute a success. There are even objects and allies that can be bought that will enhance any skills that the player finds lacking.
Players get to face dangers that turn into cliffhangers if they can’t beat them, and sneak around or fight off Nazis and mobsters, even sneak aboard a zeppelin to steal some gold straight from the Nazis.
I can not put into proper words how awesome this game is. I played it for 6 hours overnight at GenCon and had to buy it from the production company before coming home so I could introduce it to all my friends.

First of all, thematically, who doesn’t want to be Indiana Jones? Traveling around the world looking for lost treasures, fighting ***** and Mobsters? The second thing that is incredible about this game are the components. Not only is there a lot of pieces and cards, but the quality of them are top of the line. The one criticism is that the cards are too well made and it is hard to shuffle them. The rules are pretty simple and only take a few turns to really get them. The base of the game system is a risk and reward system where you have to decide to press your luck and risk losing all your progress on the quest, or to wait until your next turn at the risk of one of the other players, or the villains, completing the quest before you get a chance. Luck does come into play, but that is what I think makes the game fun. The best choices do not always lead to victory, sometimes being lucky works. I love playing this game with my family, my 13 year old son, my 8 year old son and even my six year old daughter.

I played this game co-op with my wife against the vile Nazi organization (optional rule) and we had a great time! My wife and I had to collect 20 Fortune to win, while the Nazis had to collect 15 Fortune.
There were some memorable moments during the game where my wife was attempting to capture an artifact but before she was able to, a Nazi villain showed up and managed to steal it from under her nose. This happened a couple of times and for some unknown reason, it always happened to my wife. I also remember a time during the game where a Nazi villain was at a temple and the temple ended up collapsing on the villain and her bodyguards.
By the time the game ended, there were Nazi soldiers everywhere and a couple of Nazi Secret Bases as well. My wife and I were defeated by the Nazis, but even so, we had an enjoyable time pretending we were adventurers for a day.

I sat down at the Flying Frog Demo after circling around for three days, and BOY WAS IT WORTH THE WAIT. Our demonstrator was a character from their “Touch of Evil” game, and her energy and enthusiasm was infectious. I bought the game, and talked it up to everyone at the Con. Then we got drunk on Sunday night, and a group of us played the full version. SO MUCH FUN. Lost my voice a bit, from the excitement. Reccomend to anyone who loves the genre or anything associated with it.

this game reminds me a bit of arkham horror but better … compares with arkham this game comes with miniatures and better components more replay values with out any expansion… and i wont be taking 3-4 hours neither… a better game and a better component even the character sheets are thick … sound tracks that came with the game is pretty cool too imagine that my wife also like this game… and she was the one that point it out that the game kind of like arkham horror anyway if you like arkham horror you should give this one a try…i don’t think you will be dissapointed